This book focuses on gender and civic membership in American constitutional politics from the adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment through Second Wave Feminism. It examines how American civic membership is gendered, and how the terms of civic membership available to men and women shape their political identities, aspirations, and behavior. The book also explores the dynamics of American constitutional development through a focus on civic membership--a legal and political construct at the heart of the constitutional order. This is a book about gender politics and constitutional development, and about what each of these can tell us about the other. It considers the options and choices faced by women’s rights activists in the United States as they voiced their claims for civic inclusion from Reconstruction through Second Wave Feminism, and it makes evident the limits of liberal citizenship for women.

The U.S. Constitution provides a framework for our laws, but what does it have to say about morality? Paul DeHart ferrets out that document's implicit moral assumptions as he revisits the notion that constitutions are more than merely practical institutional arrangements. In Uncovering the Constitution's Moral Design, he seeks to reveal, elaborate, and then evaluate the Constitution's normative framework to determine whether it is philosophically sound-and whether it makes moral assumptions that correspond to reality. Rejecting the standard approach of the intellectual historian, DeHart for the first time in constitutional theory applies the method of inference to the best explanation to ascertaining our Constitution's moral meaning. He distinguishes the Constitution's intention from the subjective intentions of the framers, teasing out presuppositions that the document makes about the nature of sovereignty, the common good, natural law, and natural rights. He then argues that the Constitution constrains popular sovereignty in a way that entails a real common good, transcendent of human willing and promotive of human well-being, but he points out that while the Constitution presupposes a real common good, it also implies a natural law that prescribes the common good. In critiquing previous attempts at describing and evaluating the Constitution's normative framework, DeHart demonstrates that the Constitution's moral framework corresponds largely to classical moral theory. He challenges the logical coherency of modern moral philosophy, normative positivism, and other theories that the Constitution has been argued to embody and offers a groundbreaking methodology that can be applied to uncovering the normative framework of other constitutions as well. This cogently argued study shows that the Constitution presupposes a natural law to which human law must conform, and it takes a major step in resolving current debates over the Constitution's normative framework while remaining detached from the social issues that divide today's political arena. Uncovering the Constitution's Moral Design is an original approach to the Constitution that marks a significant contribution to understanding the moral underpinnings of our form of government.

“A powerful challenge to the prevailing constitutional orthodoxy of the right and the left . . . A deeply troubling and absolutely vital book” (Mark Joseph Stern, Slate). In this provocative book, Mary Anne Franks examines the thin line between constitutional fidelity and constitutional fundamentalism. The Cult of the Constitution reveals how deep fundamentalist strains in both conservative and liberal American thought keep the Constitution in the service of white male supremacy. Franks demonstrates how constitutional fundamentalists read the Constitution selectively and self-servingly, thus undermining the integrity of the document as a whole. She goes on to argue that economic and civil libertarianism have merged to produce a deregulatory, “free-market” approach to constitutional rights that achieves fullest expression in the idealization of the Internet. The fetishization of the first and second amendments has blurred the boundaries between conduct and speech and between veneration and violence. But the Constitution itself contains the antidote to fundamentalism. The Cult of the Constitution lays bare the dark, antidemocratic consequences of constitutional fundamentalism and urges readers to take the Constitution seriously, not selectively.

This volume analyses the social and political forces that influence constitutions and the process of constitution making. It combines theoretical perspectives on the social and political foundations of constitutions with a range of detailed case studies from nineteen countries. In the first part leading scholars analyse and develop a range of theoretical perspectives, including constitutions as coordination devices, mission statements, contracts, products of domestic power play, transnational documents, and as reflection of the will of the people. In the second part these theories are examined through in-depth case studies of the social and political foundations of constitutions in countries such as Egypt, Nigeria, Japan, Romania, Bulgaria, New Zealand, Israel, Argentina and others. The result is a multidimensional study of constitutions as social phenomena and their interaction with other social phenomena.

Assesses what we know - and do not know - about comparative constitutional design and particular institutional choices concerning executive power and other issues.

To what extent does the constitution-making process matter? By focusing on three central aspects of constitution-making; the nature of the constitution-making body, how it reaches decisions and the way in which a new constitution is legitimized and by examining a wide range of case studies, this international collection from expert contributors provides answers to this crucial question. Bridging the gap between law and political science this book draws together divergent research on the role of constitution making in conflict resolution, constitutional law and democratization and employs a wide variety of qualitative and quantitative methods to unfold and explore the political frameworks of the states affected. Comparative analysis is used to investigate potential causal chains between constitution-making processes and their outcomes in terms of stability, conflict resolution and democracy. By focusing on both procedure and context, the book explores the impact of constitution-making procedures in new and established states and unions in Europe, South America and Africa.

This book explains how the United States Constitution made the transition from a very divisive proposal to a consensually legitimate framework for governing. The Federalists' proposal had been bitterly opposed, and constitutional legitimation required a major transformation. The story of that transformation is the substance of this book.

The founding of the United States after the American Revolution was so deliberate and monumental in scope that the key actors considered this new government to be a work of art framed from natural rights. Recognizing the artificial nature of the state, these early politicians believed the culture of a people should inform the development of their governing rules and bodies. The author explores these central ideas in this account of the origins and meanings of the U.S. Constitution. He reveals the cultural histories upon which the document rests, highlights the voices of ordinary people, and considers how the artifice of the state was challenged in its effort to sustain inalienable natural rights alongside slavery and to achieve political secularization at a moment of growing religious expression.

Constitutional political economy in the European Union / Dennis C. Mueller -- Constitutional design : proposals versus processes / Donald L. Horowitz -- The wave of power-sharing democracy / Arend Lijphart -- Forces and mechanisms in the constitution-making process / Jon Elster -- The consequences of popular participation in constitutional choice : towards a comparative analysis / Stefan Voigt -- Does it matter how a constitution is created? / John M. Carey -- Does the process of constitution-making matter? / Tom Ginsburg, Zachary Elkins and Justin Blount -- The economic effects of human rights / Lorenz Blume and Stefan Voigt -- Social rights in the constitution and in practice / Avi Ben-Bassat and Momi Dahan -- Electoral rules and government spending in parliamentary democracies / Torsten Persson, Gerard Roland and Guido Tabellini -- Endogenous constitutions / Davide Ticchi and Andrea Vindigni -- Separation of powers and political accountability / Torsten Persson, Gérard Roland and Guido Tabellini -- Endogenous political institutions / Philippe Aghion, Alberto Alesina and Francesco Trebbi -- On the merits of bicameral legislatures : intragovernmental bargaining and policy stability / Roger D. Congleton -- Bicameralism and corruption / Cecilia Testa -- Self-enforcing federalism / Rui J.P. de Figueiredo, Jr. and Barry R. Weingast -- Federalism and the democratic transition : lessons from South Africa / Robert P. Inman and Daniel L. Rubinfeld -- Direct democracy : designing a living constitution / Bruno S. Frey and Alois Stutzer -- The economic effects of direct democracy : a first global assessment / Lorenz Blume, Jens Müller and Stefan Voigt -- The new separation of powers / Bruce Ackerman -- Choosing not to choose : when politicians choose to delegate powers / Stefan Voigt and Eli M. Salzberger -- Locking in democracy : constitutions, commitment, and international law / Tom Ginsburg -- Improving credibility by delegating judicial competence : the case of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council / Stefan Voigt, Michael Ebeling and Lorenz Blume.

A laboratory study that investigates how algorithms come into existence. Algorithms--often associated with the terms big data, machine learning, or artificial intelligence--underlie the technologies we use every day, and disputes over the consequences, actual or potential, of new algorithms arise regularly. In this book, Florian Jaton offers a new way to study computerized methods, providing an account of where algorithms come from and how they are constituted, investigating the practical activities by which algorithms are progressively assembled rather than what they may suggest or require once they are assembled.